Fast food is a metonym
- both a part and a figurative representation of fast capitalism. Fast
capitalism is the tendency of capitalism to extract surplus value with
as little investment as possible for the greatest possible return, while
adding as little to the real economy as possible, often by means of
financial speculation and the quickening of production to the point
of making next to nothing. It is the necessary consequence of capitalism.
Fast capitalism caused the current economic crisis. And fast capitalism
leads to fast politics. Fast politics is the promise of quick political
fixes to critical socio-political and economic conditions. Obama is
the epitome of fast politics.

As Eric Schlosser
suggested in Fast Food Nation, fast food-or the serving and consumption
of food with as little nutritional value as possible to the greatest numbers
possible, is apiece with fast capitalism-or the extraction of profit from
processes that generally add little to no value to the real economy. The
fast food industry is a metonym for fast capitalism; it is both a part
of it and a figure that stands for it. Fast capitalism is the slop
du jour produced by a corporate class unable and/or unwilling to extract
sufficient profits from the production of real value. In the U.S., the
center of capitalism in the Western world, capitalism has been converting
piece by piece into fast capitalism. And fast capitalism leads to fast
politics. Obama is the epitome of fast politics.

To understand the
conversion of capitalism to fast capitalism, consider the percentage of
the GDP represented by the financialization of the U.S. economy. The financial
sector has grown from 10% to 40% of the economy over the past forty years.
That is, 40% of the U.S. GDP is the production of nothing-but speculation
on the other 60%. The current economic crisis is based on the fact that
the financialization of the past forty years has reached the point where
the claims of finance vastly outweigh the available units of surplus value.

Why does the economy
tend toward financialization? The production of goods of real value proceeds
too slowly for the kinds of quick returns expected by investors. Fast
capitalism thus seeks to make money on speculation-and adds speculative
layer upon speculative layer in order to provide bigger markets for more
fast venture capitalists. Regulation will never be able to keep up with
fast capitalism, because fast capitalism invents itself as it goes along.

Celerity provides
one important motivation for fast capitalism. But the limit of exploitative
production provides the ultimate motive. With the out-sourcing of exploitation
to the Third World nearing a certain limit, speculation necessarily becomes
a path of least resistance for investment that sees no easier or better
way for maximizing returns. It's more profitable to invest in speculation
about production than it is to produce anything of real value. That's
fast capitalism.

So to recap, fast
capitalism is needed by investors because other modes of investment are
less potentially rewarding and surely much less expedient. Additionally,
the rate of profit tends to fall with the improvement and speed of productive
capacities. Thus, fast production leads necessarily to fast capitalism.
And fast capitalism leads inevitably to crisis, because it depends largely
on the production of promise rather than the production of real value.
The production of promise is the production of fast capitalism.

Capitalism has hit
a crisis of short-term, fast capitalism. Capitalists in the U.S. are no
less addicted to fast capitalism - a deadly and unsustainable form of
economy - than the majority of the nation's workers are addicted to fast
food, an unsustainable form of eating. Fast food provides a short-term
fix to hunger while sacrificing nutritional value and long-term well being
to expediency. Similarly, fast capitalism provides a short-term fix to
the capitalist hunger for quick profit to the detriment of long-term economic
well being and the necessity to create real value for actual people living
in the world.

And the fun does
not stop there. As the relations of production - of fast capitalism -
conflict with the social relations, or the arrangements between various
members of the social body, a state of disequilibrium results. The productive
relations press upon the social relations and demand their adjustment.
Adjustment means that the social relations will accurately reflect the
productive relations.

Off-shoring and the
de-industrialization of the past forty years leaves the U.S. with a fast
capitalism that has less and less need for workers that produce real value,
and yet more and more need for new avenues of profit. Such workers are
driven into temporary piece-work, and partial or full unemployment. (The
fast food industry is one avenue of such employment.) As they lose their
power as producers, their political and economic dead weight is felt by
the system. Parts are sloughed off into poverty, homelessness, terminal
illness, and death. Politically, surviving parts become masses of disaffection
that are either cast out or offered political asylum according to chance-often
by the forces of political reaction because the system of 'enlightened
capitalism,' otherwise known as liberalism, merely disclaims them as a
residue resistant to or incapable of benefitting from the benevolence
of its 'reforms.' Meanwhile, because of the crisis of capitalism, reforms
are impossible. Thus, the promise of reforms passes as reform. An example
is the health care "reform" legislation, which amounts to cuts
and rollbacks in addition to the reshuffling of benefits.

As the system needs
less labor producing real value at home and reaches the limits of exploitation
in the Third World, fast capitalism needs more outlets for fast capital
investments-often ultimately depending on the very same minimized workers
who have been economically debased by fast capitalism itself. Thus the
banking industry's investment in home mortgages of workers who could not
or cannot afford them, especially given the interest rates-interest rates
needed for capitalism to produce its promised profits.

Fast capitalism also
includes the military and intelligence industry whose production is destruction,
detention, political intervention, and ultimately the illegitimate appropriation
of geo-political assets. The crisis of capitalism - fast capitalism -
and not the mostly empty threat of terrorism - accounts for the wars in
Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and soon possibly, Yemen. Diminishing returns
on capital and fast capitalism's need to acquire assets using tax payer
money and thus at low investor cost leads to wars. This is capitalism's
natural tendency toward imperialism. Likewise, instead of ending, these
wars have been intensified and extended under a new administration, regardless
of fast promises.

The body of fast
capitalism - of capitalism itself - is in critical condition. This body's
damaged state reared its ugly head in the fall of 2008 with the failure
of the finance industry, based as it was on layers and layers of speculation
greatly outweighing the available surplus value beneath. But behind the
ugly head lay the effects of the crisis - a huge lumbering and palsied
body. All of this coming after promises of change. But with little reason
to invest in anything but fast capitalist bandages, a body emerges little
by little, to the terror of some and the dismay of others. It slouches
revealing continued bleeding: job loss, extended unemployment, record
foreclosures, along with the knowledge that any sure-fire fast fix is
unlikely. Fast capitalism has no answers for these effects of the crisis
other than to promise change and deliver nothing- like a fast food industry
that promises nutrition and delivers mostly empty calories. So what is
it that it offers? Fast politics. Obama is the fast talker
of fast capitalism. He promises 'reform' but the body politic has no reforms
in it. He promises a new New Deal, but can deliver only a Raw Deal.

Fast politics is
the promise of quick political fixes to critical socio-political and economic
conditions. This scenario explains the appearance, promise, and necessary
failure of Barack Obama. Yes, Obama has said that the change would only
come from those voted for him. But what does this mean when neither he
nor they can under the current condition do anything to change the system
of fast capitalism, which system made his very appearance possible, even
necessary?

Obama can do nothing
to change fast capitalism because he was funded by and represents fast
capitalism and fast capitalists. He is their very political face! His
supporters can do nothing to change fast capitalism because as long as
they are his supporters they are relying on fast politics and fast capitalism
for the change they want. And as long as the system of fast capitalism
is in place, fast politics will be the only politics on offer!

What is the face
of fast politics? It is the face of desperation. It is the face of fear
and the hope in the heroic efforts of individual leaders. It is a hope
that campaign speeches have a magical effect and make the changes that
cannot be made as such. It is a belief in magic. It believes in laying
on of the invisible hand, the wave of Obama's magical wand and poof, the
reforms will appear. But nothing of the sort promised is going to appear
under fast capitalism.

The
only alternative to both fast capitalism and fast politics is to completely
revolutionize the political processes and the productive processes. To
eliminate the elements of fast capitalism, underlying cancer must first
be removed; fast capitalism is the inevitable excrescence of the diminishing
returns of capitalism. But to eliminate fast capitalism, fast politics
must first be surrendered. Magical thinking must be abandoned. Belief
in heroes with fast action possibilities must be disavowed completely.